Team: Jenna Sherman (Stern M.B.A. ’25), Amaan Mithani (Tandon M.S. ’26)
About the Venture: Haven is a personal data management platform that provides tailored insights and recommendations, empowering users to take control of their digital footprint and enhance online security.
Haven is a digital wellbeing and privacy platform that helps users reclaim control over their personal data and online habits. In today’s world, every scroll, click, and pause is silently tracked—feeding a behavioral profile we never agreed to build. That data is used to influence what we see, buy, and even believe. Most people have no clear way to trace or manage this invisible process.
Â
Haven changes that. We provide users with a personalized dashboard that makes their digital behavior visible, actionable, and empowering. Through real-time data integrations and AI-driven insights, users can understand how algorithms shape their online experiences, set privacy boundaries, cut down on doom-scrolling, and reclaim their time—all without needing to disconnect.
Â
Our target users are digitally active Gen Z and Millennials who are already tracking things like sleep, fitness, and screen time—and are now ready to do the same with their digital lives. With Haven, they gain not just privacy, but intentionality. We believe users deserve tools that work for them, not on them.
Jenna was working on the idea for Haven during her time at USC and McKinsey, where she learned about the data economy and cybersecurity. So, when she got to NYU for her MBA she knew she needed to pursue Haven with full force. To do this, she needed a technical partner to help bring Haven to life. She set out to find this person and met Amaan, who is a software engineer and AI/ML expert. Amaan was eager to start something in his field, and Jenna saw how passionate he was about data, helping people, and building a product people want to use. After their first meeting, it was very clear they were the right duo to build Haven, Jenna on the business and vision side, and Amaan with the skills to make it real. And from there, the team was off to the races.
While other tools attempt to address pieces of the data privacy puzzle, Haven is building the full picture. Competitors offer partial solutions—whether it’s deleting data, monetizing it, or masking identity—but they often fall short on usability, personalization, and long-term engagement. These tools either require too much effort from the user, are overly technical, or are too extreme to be practical for the average person.
Â
Haven is different. We’re not just offering privacy—we’re offering personalized agency. Our platform gives users a clear dashboard of their online behavior, AI-powered recommendations tailored to their goals, and the ability to see, control, and eventually sell or delete their data. Unlike many competitors who jump straight to monetization or deletion, we start with what users actually care about: understanding and improving their digital habits. That builds trust and sustained engagement.
Â
We’re also targeting a broader market by offering dual benefits—habit optimization and privacy—meeting the needs of both life-quantifiers and privacy-conscious users. In a space full of fragmented fixes. Haven is designed to be the go-to platform for total digital wellbeing and control.
Our motivation to join the NYU Entrepreneurs Challenge stemmed from our belief that Haven addresses a critical gap in the digital wellbeing landscape—empowering users to reclaim control over their personal data. We see the Challenge as an ideal platform to validate our vision, learn from experienced mentors, and connect with a network of investors and strategic partners who understand the value of a comprehensive, user-first approach. We’re eager to continue pressure-testing our product, gain actionable feedback, and refine our strategy to enhance user engagement and trust. Ultimately, we hope to gain the momentum and resources necessary to scale Haven, transforming the way digital natives manage their online lives while building a healthier, more transparent relationship with the internet.
The biggest turning point came when we started speaking directly with users. What began as a concept about data privacy quickly became something much deeper—people weren’t just frustrated with tracking; they felt genuinely exploited by the internet. One user told us that Haven made them feel like “they had a say again,” and that stuck with us. It shifted our focus from just showing data to actually empowering people with it.
Â
This feedback reframed our entire product vision. We weren’t just building a dashboard—we were building a sense of agency, a way for people to feel less overwhelmed and more in control of their online experiences. It validated that Haven wasn’t just solving a technical problem, but an emotional and psychological one too. That realization helped us double down on user-centric design and long-term engagement, not just features. It’s what turned Haven from a tool into a mission.
One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced in building Haven is earning user trust while designing a system that can work with real-time data. Many competitors rely on static uploads or disconnected snapshots of digital activity, which don’t provide the kind of continuous, personalized insights users need to meaningfully change their habits. But building something that connects across platforms in real time—without compromising privacy—has required us to strike a delicate balance between functionality and ethics.
Â
At the same time, we’re asking users to engage with a deeply personal part of their lives: their online behavior. Many people want control, but they’re also skeptical of any platform promising to give it back. We’ve addressed this by making our process transparent, keeping users informed, and designing Haven to feel more like a tool that works for them, not on them. These dual challenges—technical and emotional—have shaped every decision we’ve made. Overcoming them has meant constant iteration, user feedback, and staying grounded in our mission: to restore a sense of agency to digital life.
In the past few months, we’ve moved quickly from concept to early traction. We built and tested a working MVP that ingests static behavioral data, which allowed us to validate core features and gather feedback from real users. Our first prototype test included 30 users, and we’re now preparing to launch a second version—this time incorporating their feedback and expanding our focus on usability and habit tracking. We’ve also conducted 88 customer interviews, which have deeply shaped our roadmap and reinforced how real the need is for a platform like Haven.
Â
We currently have 63 users on our waitlist and recently pitched Haven on the street for Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Elevator Pitch” segment—an energizing experience that helped sharpen our messaging in real time. Reaching these milestones hasn’t been easy; it’s required constant iteration, rejection, learning, and deep focus. But every step forward has felt like proof that we’re solving a problem that truly resonates. With each new tester, conversation, and pitch, we’re building more than a product—we’re building momentum around a mission people are ready for.
Be obsessed with the problem, not the solution. You’ll probably pivot the product a few times, but if you remain grounded in the problem you are solving you will be able to iterate and adapt, to continue working towards a solution. Talk to people constantly. Not just mentors or investors—real users. Your job isn’t to guess what they need; it’s to listen until it’s obvious.
Also, don’t wait until you feel “ready.” You’ll never feel ready. Don’t be nervous to launch a messy product – this will get the idea out so you can get feedback, fix it and repeat.
Â
Most importantly, take care of yourself. It’s easy to lose your sense of balance when you’re pouring everything into something new. But your energy is your startup’s most valuable resource, so take care of yourself to stay focused on building the best solution.
